One in five CEOs shows signs of psychopathy according to a Forbes article I happened to read a couple of days ago. I was so shocked that I started researching and discovered a gazillion of papers, studies and literature on the so-called “corporate psychopathy”. The list of behaviors linked to this personality disorder knocked me out: lack of empathy, egocentrism, lack of remorse, manipulation, lies, superficial charm, … At first it seems that we are talking about the famous character of American Psycho, but the truth is that reading this list also makes us quickly think of some other boss that we have endured in the past. Or who maybe we are suffering now.
In a direct or indirect way, we all know the organizational havoc that corporate psychopaths cause with their management and how devastating their mistreatment is in the people who work with them. Some develop Stockholm syndrome, others believe they can make corporate psycopaths come to their senses (and die trying), others have to end up attending therapy, others silently endure all kinds of corporate harassment that make them live in constant panic and insecurity while they are at work. The sad reality is that, unless there is a criminal behavior forcing them to do so, corporate psychopaths are not going to submit to any type of treatment or behavioral therapy. Those individuals will not change. This means that dealing with a corporate psychopath will be constant wear and tear at all levels for all those people who have to put up with it. There is no salvation, so you better take your bag and leave. Or, if you decide that you don’t have a better place to go and that you can endure the situation (NLP betrays us so many times …), it is recommended to avoid the corporate psychopaths as much as possible and try to work in a parallel way (but I’m not sure if it’s realistic to think that this could happen).
However, the really disturbing thing about corporate psychopathy as a phenomenon is to consider how we have been able to create organizational environments where “growing” or “making a career” is linked to a lack of empathy, manipulation or the absence of remorse. Evidently, in these environments a corporate psychopath will behave like a fish in water and will always have the means to win. The solution is not to eliminate psychopaths. In fact, studies say that 1 in 200 people is. The solution is to focus on those other organizations where there is no hypocrisy or fear, where manipulation and lack of empathy are denounced and where there is no place for corporate psychopathy. Because those organizations exist. Let’s talk about them, let’s see what systems they implement, visit them and see them from the inside, talk to their people, give them the microphone, let’s replicate them. Stop praising and giving fake awards to companies that we know are in the hands of corporate psychopaths (because in the end we all know them). If we want psychologically safe environments and to solve one of the main causes of organizational mediocrity, let’s throw a cordon sanitaire around corporate psychopaths.
